Mr. Lovelady

In "That Evening Sun," Nancy tells the Compson children that "I got my coffin money saved up with Mr. Lovelady" - or as Quentin's narrative explains, Mr. Lovelady is "a short, dirty man who collected the Negro insurance, coming around to the cabins or the kitchens every Saturday morning, to collect fifteen cents" toward a fund to pay for their funerals (308). He lives at the hotel with his wife and only daughter. Though he and his family occupy only part of a paragraph, the details of their story are provocative: Mrs. Lovelady commits suicide, and after leaving town with his daughter, Mr. Lovelady returns a week or two later alone.